Awakening of a Candle - 62%

Svatan are a black metal band from Brazil that formed in 2015. The two founders have been involved with other bands but nothing prominent. Awakening of the Mighty Flame is their debut and they released it in back in 2016.

This is not black metal in the South American style. Svatan give us an album that essentially comes down to Norway meets Greece. They take from the more melodic side of Norwegian scene their song structures and the style of guitar playing. While from Greece they take their sense of melody and how they use the keys. There are moments that refer more to the Swedish sound but those are mostly footnotes in the overarching scheme of this album.

From a technical point of view this album delivers a solid performance. The varied vocals are a plus and their sense of melody is above average as well. However this only results in a release that's just a step above average. Their song and riff writing chops are just not good enough to make this album stand out among the overcrowded world of modern black metal. While various individual elements might be superficially appealing overall the album is a bit of a blur. The production job on top of that also increases the blurry nature of this release. The album is very loud and kind of grating. I am quite sure that if I listened to this album on my headphones I'd definitely have some ear fatigue by the end of this albums run time.

In a way this band has gotten one foot in the door despite the album mostly being a tiring listening experience. Their sense of melody is what makes this band promising to me. It is not likely that I will revisit this release but there is enough on display here to make me check out their future material.